Hello all,
I was quite beside myself this morning when I read Elizabeth Bear’s Blog (author of Blood & Iron and Whiskey & Water) to find that Amazon, who I link my book reviews through, has made some rather undesirable changes to their “adult” title search policy. So I felt that I should write to them to see “What’s up?”
I am sure that you are all quite swamped with comments concerning the news that your “adult” policy has changed. I, like many others would like an explanation as to why this seems to target only gay, lesbian, and transgendered books, both fictional and non-fictional. Why this is targeting only items that are homosexual, and not heterosexual as well. When doing a search on Amazon today, books like “Unfriendly Fire” do not have ratings, but books like “Playboy: Six Decades of Centerfolds” still have a rating and are still searchable. I wish to know what the exact policy is. I also do not support the censoring of books. I can fully understand wanting to make sure explicit items do not end up in the hands of children, but this can easily be taken care of when an account is set up by asking for a certification that the owner of this account is over the age of 18 and would like to be able to search adult content. Stumble Upon does this quite well. If the user is either under age or does not want to have “adult” material show up when they search, that is up to them. I and other users should not be punished or limited because someone found an item that they deemed inappropriate. If an item is to be hidden by Amazon, Amazon should not be selling it and gaining a profit off of it. One of my managers (at a well known bookstore) once told a customer that “we are not in the business of censorship.” If the policy of Amazon is to censor books, in any way, shape, or form, I will be changing my website to a different book vendor and requesting that my account be deleted. I truly hope that this is not the case, but I am greatly interested on seeing the exact wording on the current policy. Thank you.
Until I hear back from Amazon, I will leave the links in place for all items. I fully understand if you do not wish to make any purchases until this matter has been resolved.
In other news, librarian Judith Krug, founder of Banned Books Week, passed away last night. This by itself is sad, and she will be greatly missed. But this should be a chance to honor her fight to highlight wonderful books that some in society deem inappropriate. I am in the mood to read Fahrenheit 451.